Small Things Make A Difference

Like a wounded animal I am finding that I can adapt to the changes to me almost as well. I would have never thought of some of these solutions beforehand but as I progress into 'light' activity, I come up with some interesting solutions. For instance I have more things sitting out at a level they are easy to reach than I would normally like ... but it is what it is right now. One thing I have noticed during this period that sometimes the smallest thing can make a world of difference.

One example is having the doctor allowing me to sleep on my side instead of my back. My sleeping changed from one hour segments to a solid night of sleep. For some reason my trips to the bathroom during the night decreased from every hour to nothing or one trip at the most. I've gone from drinking less water to prevent those to trips to drinking as much water as I want. So maybe all of that is a sign of healing.

I've never used a walker before but I have seen them in action. What I have never liked about mine was the front wheels squeaked but that was fixed with a little WD-40. Hearing the hard rubber tips on the back to legs, screeching across my tile floors drove me insane. I knew the solution but I could not find those two tennis balls I had wrapped in a sock. I had them for years and used that cheap tool to roll my back on killing all the muscle soreness. I was pretty sure I had packed them when I moved because I did not buy the self-massage roller and rolling bar until a couple of months after I got here.

So where were those tennis balls?

I looked everywhere. It was another time where I have misplaced something and can't find it until it shows up on it's own or a my brain defrags like an old computer hard drive ... then I remember. But not in this case. That tight tube sock with two tennis balls inside were no longer in the house, disappearing into thin air.

I wanted to cut those tennis balls wide enough so they would fit over the back leg tips of my walker. Then I would have complete silence when using it and might even use it more without that noise. No problem though, Amazon can send me three of them in a matter of day or two days. For only $3.19 per container why wait, why look a 100th time for those I could not find.

As many of you know from your past experiences .. what is lost will not show up until you have bought, paid for and either received their replacement or the replacement has been shipped.

This happened at the strangest time though. At 4:10am ... that's not a misprint.

I had woken up at 4:00am like always, so did the hounds and we all march down the hallway toward the back door so they can go outside and then we head back for more sleep. Today was much different. One of those "small things make a difference" happened just about the time I was flipping the light switch off for the kitchen lights.

THERE ... under the corner of the couch is a glimpse of a white something. I don't recall ever shoving anything under my couch nor was there anything on the floor in that area when they delivered and set up my couch. All the times I had walked from the kitchen to the living room I had NEVER SEEN that white something under my couch at the corner and just to the side of the end table. In fact it was in a place that even I could not have put them there unless I did so intentionally.

I grabbed the infamous "grabber" and headed to see what it was.

The first clue that something was wrong ... my missing compression sock was more under the couch than the end table and not in a place I had ever left it. I pulled that up with the grabber and was happy I now had the equal number of left and right socks. Nothing irritates me more than losing just one sock.

So the chance of a lifetime as I tried not to bend over more than 90° (rehab rule) but still get the grabber at the right angle to where I could grab the sock area between the two tennis balls and have enough power to pull that out from under the couch. It looked like the couch might be lower than the height of the tennis balls ... so how did that get under there.

I had a few suspects ... one main one really ... Stella.

I had to put some force on the grabber to pull out the tennis balls ... but was successful. I ran to the kitchen pulled out my exacto knife and started cutting. Long story short ... complete silence now when I use the walker with those two tennis balls on the rear legs of the walker.

What about the tennis balls that will arrive today?

I guess they will be my spares for the next 30 years if a walker is ever needed again. Neither Stella nor Heidi are into playing fetch like Sadie or Winston, so using the new tennis balls for that is not an option.

Stella is NOT the expert hider of things that Sadie or Winston was. Those two were the all-time experts in taking my things and hiding them either in their blankets, the corner of the closet floor, under the couch ... you get the picture.

Stella believes in quality not quantity. She doesn't do it often but does it well.

For example the other day after I got back from my doctor appointment, Stella was still in her crate but she had pushed out different spots of that strong black steel rod that made up the crate. The small padlock on the front door was still there but the two keys I left in the lock were missing.

Did she eat them? The padlock was turned inward when I had left it outward, so she had moved that someway with her teeth. I looked on the floor around the large crate and saw nothing ... I started looking inside on the crate floor, near the soft rubber and cloth bones she never chews on ... ah ha .... there were the two keys back in the corner of the floor under the cloth rope like chew bone ... hidden!!

They didn't just fly through the air the full length of the crate and fall in that perfect hiding spot, if you know what I mean.

So whether it's my stuff of the hounds ... small things make a difference.

Like the length of Heidi's pawnails. The new height of my dog food container where I can reach the bottom without bending over. A spatula gives me extra length to reach into the ice bucket to get ice for my water glass without bending over. My freezer is at the bottom of the fridge. That 2'-3' shoe horn gets my right shoe on every morning. A cane adjusted lower and the proper height compared to a trekking pole makes walking much easier.

The list goes on and on.

I declared today a 'rest' day. It would be a day/night of college football and general walking inside the house but very few laps were going to be walked around the fence line in what I now call "the prison yard" LOL. I may or may not walk to the mailbox, depending if they leave my Amazon shipment of small boxes on the front porch.

Otherwise I will sit on the 4" seat pad, straight back chair watching the games while dreaming of the day I can sit on the couch again ... now there is a future small thing that will make a huge difference. Driving is another thing to look forward to that is taken for granted.

There seems to be a lot of teaching moments during this time of rehab.

It was a great day here in the Wild West.

Saturday Was A Rest Day

I attempted and I think succeeded, to rest on Saturday. I only walked when letting the hounds outside, fixing meals in the kitchen and trips to the fridge while watching college football. I tried to get up out of my chair every hour to get the blood circulating if it only meant to stand in one spot. I did NOT try to walk laps inside the house or up and down the hallway ... I wanted to see how I felt by the end of the day without the extra steps. I felt good throughout the day into the early evening.


It was another typical night of sleep Friday night but I was able to add some longer periods of solid sleep. I might be up to 3 hours straight right now. I am the one waking the hounds up now as they both sleep mostly through the night. You can see here it's early and they are not that active, probably wishing they could be fed breakfast when they get up like they use to instead of waiting for MJ to feed them around 8am.

Saturday morning I grabbed the Canon G9 X, the camera with the black spot that is on the sensor sometimes. It was back and I edited out that black spot for these next few photos. It was so nice to sit outside in 62° weather watching the day get it's start. Coffee seems to taste better when it is consumed outside early in the morning.

I felt good Saturday morning, felt strong. I could tell it was going to be a good day, with nothing planned but watching college football with good games late into Saturday and a specific plan to rest and not walk as much. Out west games start at 9am and finish much earlier then they did when I lived in Indiana. No more having to stay up until 1:30am to see the end of the game.

Excuse the dog hair in the space between the floor and step. I'll be vacuuming out there today (Sunday). There is a slight step down onto the patio. For support I line the walker up like this and then take the first step with my good side, the left ... left foot first. I step down easy just to make sure the new right hip ball joint stays where it should. I'd rather be too careful than back in the ER.

With morning temps in the 60's and 70's staying around until after lunch, Heidi has been spending a lot more time in the 'rock' yard and soaking up the sunshine. She likes laying on the edge of the patio where the sunshine can barely touch her.

As I sit sipping hot coffee, listening to the birds and watching the clouds ... I realize just how much I miss that daily early walk that Stella and I use to do before her surgery. That knocked her out for two weeks of no walking. I hurt my hip the day after the vet office took off her bandage and said to wait until the following Tuesday before she would walk again. I also miss those morning bike rides and wonder what it will feel like when I try to get on any of my bikes for the first time.

When I asked Stella "do you miss your walk?" ... she gave me this look. She does.

MJ showed up soon after my neighbor did Saturday morning. The hounds love it when MJ shows up but like she reminds me, they only do that because she is the one feeding them now. "It's all about food." Gerry was happy when I told him I was going to make an effort to walk less and watch more football instead. He has seen others go through rehab for knee and hip replacements. He tells me I have progressed faster than he has ever seen.

I didn't make it to the end of the Saturday night football games but I did set my DVR to tape the last part of the games that I was going to miss. I may or may not watch them in a few days. I was tired Saturday night and when I get that feeling I do not hesitate in getting some sleep, no matter what time of day or night it is.

Sleeping solid until 1:40am when I woke up for some reason. I may have heard the hounds shaking their flopping ears and dog tags making noise as they did. They like to do a full body shake when they wake up. By the time my feet hit the floor, both of them were standing by the kitchen door to be let outside. I knew then I'd have a hard time getting back to sleep this morning.

I'll try but when I don't get back to sleep I get up, no matter the time. So here I was this morning (Sunday) starting this post a little before 3am. I felt stronger this morning as I walked down the hallway. In fact I lifted the walker up and walked on my own for that distance to the kitchen. It was nice to hear "quiet" as I walked. I DON'T do that all the time, only when the body feels like doing it.

The first day I attempted that a few days ago, I was suddenly not as strong as I felt with the walker and I thought I was back on Day 2 ... so I went back to the walker, walking slowly and not pushing anything. This morning though I feel so much stronger without the walker.

I still follow protocol when turning corners, or sitting down. I still hold my right leg straight out as I lower myself into the high seat. I feel that I could slide into a chair like I normally would before the surgery but I won't until I talk to the surgeon on Tuesday. My PT friend did tells me it would be okay to walk a little bit without the walker INSIDE the house but always near a table, a counter or furniture in case I need support.

I've done a lot of reading about timelines for the healing process. Combine all that I have read there are some pretty consistent time frames. For example, for the Hip Capsule to be fully healed, that will take 60-90 days or in my case November 8 at the earliest. Yet I could return to "normal activity" within 10-12 weeks which would be November 16.

Looking at dates, I still have a long way to go.

Of course everybody is different and that is the unknown, why doctors or the surgeon could not give me a firm timeline with dates to shoot for.

I heard a terrible story from a friend yesterday about her sister's knee replacement this past year. I'll not go into detail but it makes my situation look simple compared to what happened to her. I stopped reading the forum I found the other day with only members that had hip replacements. IF I can heal without going through what I have seen on that forum I will consider myself very very fortunate. Of course, like all forums whether it be sports, cars, hounds, or anything else ... most have a negative tone to them.

The swelling around the incision continues to go down. I started icing it 15 minutes at a time with my new ice packs I received on Friday from Amazon Prime. For the first time I was able to see the whole incision just by turning my head instead of trying to get a mirror in the right angle to look. One question I have on Tuesday is why did he choose not to insert a drain tube in the incision?

Well I have that feeling of sleep again so I'll end this post and head back to bed at 3:45am. I can get a couple of more hours of solid sleep before we start our day.

I wonder if this injury will turn me into a hiker and less a bike rider?

Oh ... I found a mobile dog grooming business that will come and pick up Heidi and Stella Wednesday morning, take them to their facility for a bath and nail trim for each. Chewy is delivering my dog food now, and groceries are delivered by Fry's Market. So basically everything is lined up for a 'long haul' as I continue my recovery.

It's cool this morning the darkness of the Wild West.

Stella Yelps In Pain

We had just finished our afternoon walk on Saturday when Stella stopped in the north part of the backyard, normal for her. I had not noticed anything different than other afternoon walks where she walks slower than she does in the mornings. Nor had I heard anything up to that time during the day. As I rubbed the top of her lower back on top near her left hip, she let out a loud yelp ... then started wagging her tail a little. I thought that was strange but she is taking hip/joint supplements and has shown signs in the past that her hips bother her at times.

What wasn't normal was when she tried to raise her left front leg to step up on the couch, she couldn't do it. I thought she might walk away and lay on the floor but bloodhounds are stubborn and if they want to do something they are going to find a way to do it, no matter what I say or what I do. A few minutes later she climbed on the couch like every night, circled and laid next to Heidi to sleep.

Around 10:30pm while I was still watching football games, Heidi hopped off the couch and either stepped on Stella's front foot or brushed her left rear hip ... whatever she did Stella let out another loud yelp obviously in pain. It wasn't continuous, just a short few seconds.

Looking a little closer I could see a difference between her left and right front leg. That left leg area was where she had three staples taken out last month after they had removed a growth. When I squeezed it to see if what she would do, she did nothing. I remembered it was her hip I had touched in the afternoon that made her yelp.

An hour later she was able to stand up enough to make a turn so she could sleep on her left side instead of the right and did not make a sound of any kind. I normally would have given her some Buffered Aspirin but had ran out last summer, forgetting to buy more. A long time ago a vet prescribe that for my first basset hound that had sprained his knee ligaments ... so I have always used Buffered Aspirin for any kind of sprains or back problems. 5-10mg per pound of dog weight is what they recommend for dosage.

The interesting thing was as she was getting ready to step off of the couch and head to bed, she hesitated. I put my hands under her stomach and front shoulders to kind help her for a soft landing and she yelped again when I put my hand under her front armpit. Maybe that swollen front leg has something to do with it?? If so, why was she yelping when I touched her left hip earlier in the afternoon?

So today I was going to keep a close eye on her, probably cancel any walking for her and keep her still as much as possible. But remember, she's a bloodhound and has a mind of her own. Around 9am, she starts that now familiar sound of whining letting me know she wants to go for a walk. She TROTTED outside like her back and leg were perfect ... what was going on?

That is until she heard rain drops hitting the big leaves of the Sycamore trees and then a roll of thunder. She stopped in her tracks and lost interest in walking.

What was different, it was raining lightly and I could hear thunder in the distance but to the south the skies were blue and the sun was out.

To the west there was a little blue sky trying to creep in ... but it was raining.

When we went back inside ... the rain stopped. I put on a light Columbia rain jacket over my fleece jacket and once Stella saw me grab the ball cap from the door hinge she wagged her tail and whined her way to the door. It wasn't raining ... really wasn't sprinkling ... just a few drops of sporadic rain drops.

Stella wasn't sure whether to go on or come back to the house.

Then here was the SHOCKER of the day .... I turned around to see what she was doing ... SHE'S RUNNING !!!

She proceeded to finish the half mile walk like nothing was wrong with her and trotted a few times along the way.

Just like older people, there are some aches and pains that never go away. Some days are better than others. I am hoping it was just a bad few hours where she might have tweaked her back during the day changing sleeping positions. I'll keep an eye out for the next few days and see what else she will do or not do.

These photos do not show a bloodhound that is in any pain.

High winds are in the forecast today ... 30-40mph, mixed with rain.

She can smell that large field cat that lives in the neighbors wooded area.

She was actually tracking a scent today.

After stopping and thinking about what her nose was telling her, she was sure whatever it was had walked through the yard.

With this pose I am thinking field cat.

With this pose I am thinking deer.

With this pose I am thinking field cat again.

What a difference a couple of hours make when it comes to weather. It barely rained as much as they predicted, although it's windy and the skies are now blue. Not only did Heidi make those steps, which are taller than her legs ... she hopped off the other side for her path to the front yard.

Sunny and blue to the west.

Sunny and blue to the northeast.

Heidi's normal after lunch routine. She follows this exact path through the front yard back to the house. If rains or snows of course that path changes to less than a minute and no further than 6" from the side of the house.

When I think back to what my fall Saturdays use to be like when watching college football ... I used to eat a TON of food from 10am all the way through 2am.  The day would usually start with eggs, waffles, peanut butter and a lot of maple syrup. Soon after, chips and salsa, sandwiches throughout the day and burritos during the night games. I didn't drink a lot of beer if any at all but I would drink liters of Pepsi during those 14 hours .... Over the past few years someway my mind and body have adapted to drinking ice cold water and instead of chips by the large bag ... I eat raw carrots during the games. My sandwiches are no longer beef or even meat based but avocado, sliced tomatoes and mayo.

When you are a sports addict and there are too many games being played at the same time you have no choice but to do this to your tv screen. The top screens have a banner at the bottom showing scores of other games. That is Washington State and Stanford on the left, Washington and Cal game on the right.

After numerous trips off and on the couch, Stella never made a sound like yesterday afternoon and last night. Heidi decided she would play like a puppy but for her to do that I had to get on the floor as low as a basset hound. Stella stood and watched and no clue what was going on. After about 5 laps, back and from me to around the living room she decided she had all the excitement she needed for one day. I spent this afternoon inside reading while the hounds slept.

The winds are howling from the west/southwest and blowing all leaves out into the field away from the yard. With that and Stella back to her old self, all was good today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.